


Phantom Beasts

by everythingbutthekitchensink



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate, Persona 5
Genre: Animorphs AU, More characters to be added, That's a weird tag, morgana is an alien, shadows are like the yeerks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:07:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24371056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingbutthekitchensink/pseuds/everythingbutthekitchensink
Summary: Akira, Ryuji, and Ann all discover a smouldering ship crash-landed behind Ann's house while studying. It turns the three into alien-fighting shapeshifters - a career they must now balance with their everyday lives.Or: the Animorphs AU nobody has ever asked for.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! 
> 
> I never expected this goofy idea to come to fruition, but I miss Animorphs and have too much free time. 
> 
> I'm not going to info-dump here or in notes, I'll try to iron out details of how this weird fandom-merge works through story. Please bear with me on that.

“Akira,  _ why  _ are we breaking into a zoo? You know we can collect new forms in the daytime, right?” Ann sounds, quite frankly, totally exhausted. 

Akira turns to look her in the eye, halfway through cutting the fence. “I want to be a cheetah.”

Ryuji pulls a face like he’s about to shit himself. “Dude,  _ why? _ Do you have a death wish?”

“No,” he turns back to the fence, “I have a cheetah wish.”

+++

All things considered, the break-in goes well. Akira doesn’t get his cheetah form, but he  _ does _ gain a new form. One he’d rather forget, a mistake while they were moving through the touch pool area. 

Morgana laughs, “I still can’t believe you’re a horseshoe crab now, myahaha! You’ve probably got one of the least useful forms I’ve seen yet!” 

They would never let this one go, would they?

+++

_ A crater, with a softly glowing light within. The trio - Akira, Ann, and Ryuji, saw it crash in the woods behind Ann’s house. Not that they’d call themselves friends, more like “classmates forced to do a group project together and now confronting possible aliens-mates...” if that was really any sort of regular companion activity. Akira wouldn’t know. The others probably wouldn’t either.  _

_ A head pops up from the crater and they all leap back. With its tiny triangle ears, massive blue eyes, and a yellow scrap tied beneath the chin, it almost looked like some bizarre cartoonish cat mascot. Except this was real, in front of them, and it could apparently speak.  _

_ “Yowza, now THAT was a landing. At least I made it to my destination.” _

_ It looks up. Looks right into Akira’s eyes. And eventually, it speaks again.  _

_ “You… you three, you’re not consumed by Shadows, right? Will you help me take back this world?” _

_ And so, Akira, Ann, and Ryuji joined this creature - the Morgana - gaining powers to mimic the shapes of animals, and to fight Shadows, to free humans from their control. _

_ Maybe, just maybe, they could become friends doing this.  _

+++

The first time Ryuji saw Yusuke, he knew this guy was trustworthy. Few people will just spill their life troubles after being offered a cheap hot dog. Even fewer will admit they know something is wrong, just  _ not quite normal,  _ about the happenings in their life. 

Yusuke did both, and the trio (plus Morgana) knew their next Shadow target was living with the poor artist. What they didn’t know was that he had met a particularly paranoid Shadow, and it told him a great deal of the suspicions regarding the “Phantom Beasts,” through the mouth of none other than Madarame. 

+++

_ “So how, exactly, do these creatures work? They’re aliens like you, right?” Ryuji mumbles through a mouthful of chips.  _

_ Morgana scowls, “not quite. They’re still foreign to your planet, sure, but they’ve been here awhile now. About a hundred years, maybe. They have a gaseous form, and possess the body of a host. Humans can’t see or attack this form, but animals can. That’s why you morph.” _

_ Ann nods along.  _

_ “So, what you’re saying is that having a variety of forms helps us to defeat more dangerous Shadows?” Akira has to admit he’s jealous of how fast she’s taking this all in.  _

_ “Right,” the scowl disappears from his face. “Akira’s house cat form is useful, but it won’t do particularly well against a Shadow that’s had its host for a long time. But since he started with a house cat, it will be easier to maintain that form than others because it’s more familiar.” _

_ Did this mean they were all some sort of otherkin, or furries now? Akira hoped not. That would be embarrassing. Luckily, Ryuji voices a similar concern.  _

_ “Hold on a sec… so this isn’t, like, werewolf stuff is it? I’m not gonna suddenly transform in the light of a full moon or anything?” _

_ Ann quips back, “You already eat enough meat to be a dog, you might as well!” _

_ Morgana simply shakes his head no.  _

_ Akira wonders about cat forms. Since he’s already familiar with them, a more powerful cat would be a good addition, right? Something like a tiger. Or a cheetah.  _

_ He likes the sound of that. _


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yusuke joins the Beasts and an unlucky boy finds a possible tool.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOO this chapter took a little bit! Uni has got me pretty frazzled but I hope this still goes smoothly :) Happy reading!

When the Beasts first offered to help Yusuke, he wasn’t sure what to think. These three kids, his own age, were the formidable threat that supposedly had a schoolteacher turning himself in? It was hardly believable, but if Madarame’s strange behaviours got any worse he had nowhere he could run to. 

Yusuke will take their help. On one condition. 

He wants to see the action for himself. He wants to help Madarame too. 

+++

Everyone is surprised when Yusuke, after insisting to join, drags them to the forest behind Madarame’s shack. 

“Uh, so what exactly are we doing here, painter-boy?” Morgana seems wary, and with all the crows circling above it’s no wonder. 

“Well, as you had explained to me I must gain a primary form to use before I am able to detect or touch Shadows, is this correct?”

“Yeah, but -”

“Then it is decided. I have chosen an animal which I believe will be quite versatile and strong, even as a starting form, and since we first spoke I have been making efforts to befriend such an animal.” The group’s eyes wander upwards, watching the birds gather. Yusuke was certainly right, having someone able to fly would be a major asset - where was he going?

“Yusuke! What are you doing?” Akira calls after the boy, weaving quickly between the trees. 

“Shh, shh. She’ll be upset if you disturb the kids.” Yusuke then crouches, and reaches his hand, palm open, to a large hole tucked beneath tree roots. 

They had expected something a little eccentric from the boy, sure, but not a freaking  _ wolf. _

Ryuji shrieks. Ann starts to shake. Yusuke, however, just rolls his eyes, and scratches the creature behind its ears. It makes a noise halfway between a yip and a purr. Something occurs to Akira. 

“That’s… just a really dirty fox, isn’t it?” While its fur was mostly brown, there were small streaks of orange peeking through. 

How did Yusuke find this anyway? 

“I saw her behind the house, stealing from the garden a few times. Madarame told me to track her, find her burrow, so that we could send animal control, but… she has young ones, and I cannot bear the thought of them being hurt. So I started bringing her food, instead of forcing her to loot from us.”

The process goes smoothly, and Yusuke takes to morphing incredibly quickly. He relates it to art, somehow. 

Two cats, a dog, a fox, and an alien head off to fight a man possessed by a creature only they can see. And that was only the beginning. 

+++

+++

Goro Akechi has always cursed his luck. From childhood until now, he counts memories as a series of close calls and narrow comebacks. Even this. How was he supposed to know there was a time limit on how long his body could stay in this form? Loki hadn’t said anything about this, and when he tried to shift back, the angular being just cackled at him. 

“How do you like it, being in the body of a bird? More convenient for travel, isn’t it?”

Akechi wishes he could properly glare like this. He also wishes he could strangle Loki with human hands, instead of these stupid talons. 

Is he really doomed to this form forever? To be a stupid  _ crow,  _ of all things, a creature no smarter than anyone who stops to stare in the windows of a jewellry shop because they saw something shiny?

“Aw, don’t let it get to you. You still have a human mind, and you can become a human, but the transformation will time out eventually.” He wants so badly to claw that crooked grin off. 

“And how long is that going to be? Or are you going to force me to figure that out, too?”

Loki tilts his head, ever birdlike, grating on Akechi’s nerves and twisting his heart in a way he didn’t know was possible. “Well, it should be the same limit. Six hours, and not a second longer, or you’ll be wearing feathers instead of those sweater vests you like so much.”

How was he supposed to enact his plan like this, unable to pass as a human for even a whole day? 

Or maybe… he could use this to his advantage. If a beak could hold a grin, he’d surely look like a maniac now, but there was nothing to be done about it. 

Goro Akechi has always cursed his luck, but maybe even a blind bird can find a seed. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone worries about the future, but there is still time to change it...

Even the second time around, Akira still finds fighting a shadow utterly bizarre. After the group - now including Yusuke - morphs, they’re treated to a strange filter over the world, which Morgana dubs “the Metaverse,” and explains that only animals can see this portion of light, where the Shadows are visible. 

“It’s kind of how you’ll see a dog barking at nothing, or a cat jump up and run when there’s nothing to run from,” the bobble-headed alien explains, “they can see things humans can’t, and that includes Shadows.”

Ann shudders at the mention of them. It’s no wonder she does - she’s seen several times how the freakish blobs look, like blackish bubbles, pulsing beneath the host’s skin and infecting them with the Shadow’s distorted cravings. The Shadow on Kamoshida engulfed most of his skin, rendering him almost unrecognisable; though those called “Memento Shadows,” which were supposedly far weaker, simply turned a person’s skin greyish and saggy. The golden eyes were always a dead giveaway, staring through the team, seemingly looking at their human forms. 

Ann really hopes they get this over with soon. 

The group shifts. Ann, into a cheetah - for which Akira is still bitter - Ryuji into a malamute, Yusuke taking on the fox they had met recently, and their leader, Akira, into…

… a horseshoe crab?

“Dammit!” he changes back, and stamps a foot like a toddler. “Why did I  _ do _ that?”

Second try. Akira shifts into the far more practical house cat. 

They set off, towards the shack that Yusuke calls home. 

+++

Akechi has seen a lot in his life: dead bodies, horrible, distorted flesh on the living…

he’s seen the god of chaos, right in front of him, offering him a new shape and power. 

What he hadn’t seen yet was others who share that power. 

By total chance, too; he had been scoping out a place to hide out in the forest, away from the possibility of being discovered, when he saw a group of kids no older than himself, making their way to a fox’s den. He felt Loki tense at the sight of their cat.  _ “They must know each other…”  _ he thinks, and he watches the one in the white collared shirt touch the mother and then copy her shape, albeit far less dirty. 

This may be a serious threat to his work. The gears start turning in his head, and without putting much thought into it, Akechi begins to clean his feathers, letting the plan take shape. 

No adults could stop him yet. Why should he worry about some kids? Everything would fall into place. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for this one being a little shorter. I wanted to get some explanations in, and it was really clunky to combine that with the fight with Madarame. He'll be in the next chapter, fear not!  
> Again, thank you so much for reading and have a great day :)


End file.
